Event 2: A Testimony to the Glitches of Gaia
by Talmos
Summary: A majority of the old users on Gaia were banned for a false reason. Can Zookaroo find out who did this and save them before the shuttle launches?
1. Chapter 1 Change

Strange how things can change huh? Gaia used to be an ordinary forum, a place where we could chat, hang out, and discuss the happenings in real life. That's all there ever was. Now we have games to play, worlds we can hang out in, and homes to furnish. Just an ordinary day, as some would call it.

Chapter 1

I strolled down 2nd avenue of Barton town, checking out the shops as I passed by them. I peeked every once in a while at the new clothing hanging in the window of the Barton Boutique, and the new diamond earrings in Julia's shop. I couldn't help but peer at the reflection of myself in the glass and smile.

At least one thing didn't change; my clothing was still the average red kimono and straw hat that I had always worn. And although some new accessories were added, they were still years old and still kept the style that had always been.

I walked to the home section and pressed a button on the daily chance. The vending machine did not respond. The hand just moved back and forth in rhythmic patterns. I pressed the button again, but still nothing happened. Again I pressed it, but still nothing. Eventually I got caught up into such a furry that I pressed the button over and over again repeatedly, and after awhile gave up. Leaving the machine behind to go join the users in the discussion forum.

"There are glitches everywhere!" A girl screamed complaining at the top of her lungs. "The baits gone, booty grab isn't working, Skittles World is busted!"

"I know, the same thing happened to me as well." A user replied holding his g-blade in a defensive stance. "The site's rigged. Last night I lost a monthly collectible to the server." He pointed to the empty space in his inventory. "I reported it, but haven't gotten a response yet."

"It takes awhile for a mod to respond." A user replied defensively. "Just keep waiting, you'll get a response."

"Like hell I would! I bought that item with my own paycheck. I want it back now!"

"Be patient! The mods are busy with all the glitches around the site. It'll get fixed eventually."

"No it won't! It never will! The mods haven't responded in weeks!" With that the user got up and began to leave. "If this doesn't get resolved soon I'm leaving Gaia. This place isn't worth its weight in gold."

I stared back at him as he walked down the street, my eyes eventually losing site of him as new users begging for his items swamped him.

Another old user gone, what has this site come to?

"So, Zookaroo!" Asked a girl from behind me. She was wearing bunny ears and held a kiki in her arms. She reminded me of another user I had known.

"Did anything happen to one of your items?"

"Yes, actually I replied, being cool. When I joined years ago and got my first trunk, I had gotten a fresh grass skirt."

The girl's eyes widened. "What a waste! That item is like 100k now! Did you report it?"

"I did actually." My attention turned back to where the user had been. "I never got a reply."

That night I stared at the ceiling from the covers of my bed. Thinking about all the things I had experienced the previous night, the users leaving, the discussion, the glitches. Questions swarmed my head. What is happening to Gaia? Where is this entire event heading? Where are the mods, and most importantly: Where is Gaia headed? While thinking about all these things, I fell into a restless sleep.


	2. Chapter 2 The Banning

Chapter 2

That morning I awoke to a desperate knock at my door. "Zookaroo are you there? Wake up! I need to talk to you!"

Rubbing my eyes I got up and pulled my kimono over my pajamas and opened the door. Immediately Menomonee leaped at me and pulled her arms around me.

"Thank goodness your alive!" she exclaimed, tears in her eyes.

I comforted her, "What's so important? Cant you see its 3 am?"

"It's Jokering! She exclaimed, her tears getting all over my kimono. "She got banned!"

"What!? How?" Jokering was never the one to break the TOS.

"Gold laundering!" she exclaimed, "And its not just her, its everyone!"

I followed her outside into the square where everyone was gathered in his or her pajamas and nightclothes. One girl was sitting on the fountain crying, and another was sending anxious PMs to her friends, hoping desperately that they were okay.

Quickly I counted my mules, breathing a sight of relief that they were all there.

"I can't believe it! Why did they ban me? I'm innocent!" One user cried.

"No way! All my friends were banned, who will I talk to?"

"My mule and main is banned!"

"What the hell is happening to Gaia!"

As I watched them, I could see that most of the users were wearing some kind of moderately expensive item despite having mules. It seemed a bit fishy at the most, so with that in mind, I climbed onto the fountain, and clearing my throat I grabbed everyone's attention. "How many of you signed up before the year 2005?"

Almost everyone raised his or her hands. It seems that over half of the population of old users were banned in their sleep.

That night a newscast went out. The announcing of a new space shuttle in Gaia hit the spotlight of the Gaia community and the event that the users called "the leaving" fell to the bottom of the page.

All around the remaining users could be seen wearing hats, earrings, and t-shirts announcing the plan.

"This is certainly a memorable occasion, announced Lanzer. Finally Gaia will be able to reach the stars, and explore new planets outside our atmosphere."

Strange that Lanzer would decide to launch a new station now of all times? With that in mind I decided to pay a visit.


	3. Chapter 3 A Visit to Lanzer

Chapter 3

That evening during rush hour, I headed to Lanzer's house. It was located in the bright and cheery town of Barton of all places, so it was easy to find.

But even so I still had to cross the alligator pit, the gnomes located in his garden, and the crazy rock puppy stationed on his front porch, which my coco Exam managed to chase away.

Gingerly I looked through the keyhole before ringing the bell.

Inside I could see the living room neatly furbished with a flat screen TV and a DVD player, as well his as laptop sitting on the table.

I kept expecting to see a dead body, or some kind of blood stain on the walls but nothing of the sort. As I kept snooping I failed to see

the figure standing behind me.

"Hey, Zookaroo!" I jumped.

"LOL, hello Lanzer! How've you been this morning?"

Lanzer stood behind me his hair in a matted mess, his eyes covered in dark circles, and a newspaper under his left his arm. I took the hint.

"Uhh...never mind."

Lanzer sighed, "I hate Mondays. So what can I do you for?"

"Umm...it's about yesterday," I eyed the evil rock puppy who apparently returned."Can we talk inside?"

As we went inside, I could see that the living room was actually just a box placed casually behind the door to keep people from seeing inside.

As I stood there I saw to my horror that the once so perfect home was actually a filthy, cluttered mess of computer parts, papers, and random items thrown about the room. I muttered under my breath, "rats" and wandered into the kitchen. I brushed off a couple of papers from the table and some books off the chair. I had nothing to complain of really, as I haven't been inside his home for three years and vaguely remember what it looks like. Lanzer pushed a cup of tea towards me and sat down.

"Sorry for the mess," he stated. "Ling's been trying to get me to clean it for weeks."

"I don't blame her." I muttered and took a sip. Hiding my disgusted expression at the tea being too sweet.

"So what did you come for?"

"I came to tell you about the banning last night."

"Banning?" Lanzer though for a moment, "Oh, those."

"So you DO know about them?"

"Yes, the banning was due to a security disturbance in our database which caused a number of random users to get banned at 4 o'clock a.m."

"4 o'clock a.m.? That's the time that most users are offline!"

"Yes a real pain if you ask me."

"So you didn't do any of the banning?"

Lanzer gave me a weird look. "We don't ban users for no reason."

"Maybe, but the messages that were sent out said that they were banned for gold laundering."

"We investigated those specific accounts that were banned, there was no trace of gold laundering."

Strange I thought. No gold laundering, obviously. But still, there was one small detail I couldn't put my finger on, if Lanzer, the admin of the site, didn't ban the users, then who did? It couldn't be another mod. Gold laundering was unrelated to their jobs; they didn't have the power to ban a user without permission. So if that is the case, then who could possibly have enough power to ban another user? A hacker?

I said goodbye to Lanzer and headed out the door, I noticed that the sky had turned to a reddish orange, sunset, but seeing that I wasn't tired, I decided to do some more investigating. This time I will ask the users themselves what they had been doing before logging off and hopefully get to the root of the problem, if at all possible.


	4. Chapter 4 Frostworks

Chapter 4

I decided to start off by asking my friend Frostworks. As a user who had signed up before 2005,he sure had a lot of friends, 200 to be exact. And he kept up with everyone of them. He was always a very sociable person. So I headed to Durem.

Durem was like a city all by its self. It had shopping malls, a hair salon, skyscrapers, and even a mansion. Everything was built into a kind of Victorian design that gave the city a sense of danger, and bustling inequality. It was also Frostworks favorite town.

As I walked down the cobblestone street, I passed many users who had piercings, wore lolita dresses, and had demonic accessories on.

I looked this way and that looking for the guy; but after an hour of searching I gave up, and sat down on the patio of a fancy restaurant designed after a classic French eatery. Sighing, I looked at the menu and ordered a plate of pasta.

There was one thing I forgot to mention, he never shows up when you expect him to.

After finishing my plate of pasta and paying the merchant, I left the restaurant. Even though I was seated at the best view of the street, I did not see him anywhere.

Where could he be? Did he get banned too? Doubt was filling my head as I headed back home, it was night already and the street lamps were on, the city look beautiful at night.

As I walked alone on the sidewalk I couldn't help but bump into someone. We both fell to the ground in a heartbeat.

I began helping the person up, "I'm so sorry, I wasn't paying attention. It's so dark outside and..." I froze; this was the guy I was looking for!

"Ouch! Hey, watch where your going Zookaroo!" Frostworks laughed, a wide grin spreading across his face.

My face grew red. "Where WERE you? I was waiting for like, three hours!"

"Three hours?" Frostworks let out a puzzled expression.

"Yes three! Did you get my PM or what?"

Frostworks opened up his laptop and looked at his inbox. I could swear there were over a hundred messages titled "Leave me alone!" in there.

"Ah!" Frostworks scanned his mail until he found my message. "It looks like they got to me first." This is one annoying fact about the guy, he never looks at his mail." So what is it you wanted to talk about?"

I let out a deep breath, trying to keep myself from sounding too harsh. "I want you to do me a favor."

"A favor? Oh, sure, anything Zookaroo!" This is one reason I liked the guy. "I can get you a date, show you around ZOMG, donate to your quest, hang up flyers, hack..."

"No," I said, reflecting off the last time he hacked for me. "I would like for you to ask your friends what they were doing before they got banned."

"Oh, I see. The gold laundering thing." Frostworks opened up his laptop. "Doing a bit of detective work? I'll have the names by morning."

"Thank you," I replied. Grinning. Maybe this isn't impossible after all.


	5. Chapter 5 Unrest

Chapter 5

The next morning, during breakfast, Frostworks showed up at my door and dropped his laptop onto the table, turning it around so I could see all the names.

"Nothing!" he said. "Not even a single name that has any significance."

I scanned through them. There were various users who had gone fishing, hung out in towns, and played ZOMG, but nothing was different about their behavior. I leaned back in my chair, thinking.

The next morning Frostworks came back to find a groggy eyed Zookaroo.

"What happened to you?" he asked, sounding a bit annoyed.

"I stayed up all night trying to find some clue in the evidence," I replied. "There is absolutely no lead!"

"I told you not to think about it too hard." Frostworks went over to my bed and picked up a pillow, throwing it at me. I caught it easily. "Get some sleep! If you're going to solve a case you need plenty of rest."

"I know that but..." I hugged the pillow closer to me. What should I do? I can't unban a whole army of innocent users.

"Tell you what," Frostworks said sitting down next to me. "Let's go get a coffee. It might jog your memory."

"Coffee? Isn't that what detectives usually drink in the morning?"

Frostworks smiled, "Exactly."

A moment later we found ourselves on Isle De Gambino enjoying cups of steaming hot coffee on the outskirts of town. I already felt better, and as I took a sip, I couldn't help but feel the soft tingle of caffeine go through my body, and felt myself come back to life again.

Frostworks opened up his laptop. "Let's review everything we learned shall we? We learned that every user who was banned signed up before the year 2005 and was sent messages of gold laundering."

"And that every user had no connection in their last logout."

Frostworks typed the information onto the screen.

" else is there?" Frostworks placed a finger under his chin. I did so too. After a while he said, "Have you talked to Lanzer yet? I sure he might know something."

"Oh yeah! I did." Frostworks became wide eyed. "Oh you did really?"

"Yes!" I began to explain everything he told me.

"Ah, I see! There was a security issue. That explains everything."

"Everything?" I sighed. I was so not cut out to be a detective.

"Security issues result in an invasion or error in the system, right? Then all of these events could have resulted in an error in the database."

"But that doesn't explain the banning. How do you get banned due to an error?" Frostworks leaned back and began to rethink the dilemma, while I pulled out a newspaper and began to read about the space shuttle. Suddenly, I light came on in my head.

"That's it!" I stood up and turned the laptop towards him.

"What is?" He relied puzzled.

"There is no difference in these users activities, they're all the same!"

"How?" He stared hard at the screen.

"They're all public!"

Frostworks eyes widened, and he stood up "Then that means.." "This was caused by a hacker!"

I nodded. "First things first, we need to identify who this hacker is."

I directed him to the users logs and reluctantly he hacked into each one of them. Pulling out similar instances of names as we went down the list. Finally our actions led to one user, Nakaio925.

Our faces turned blank as we read the name. Is this really a hacker? His name is perfectly normal! But as we did more investigating it became more apparent that he really was a hacker.

His name did not appear on the search list, and when Frostworks sent a friend request, it came back as an error. So technically this user did not even exist. He was scripting!

"I see it now." Frostworks had a deep frown on his face. "The banning was a distraction."

"What do you mean?" I squinted my eyes at him.

"He's trying to hack the space shuttle."


	6. Chapter 6 The Space Shuttle

Chapter 6

We ran down the cobblestone road of Isle De Gambino into the heart of city. As we ran I couldn't help but ask how the hacker knew about the space shuttle. Without missing a beat Frostworks replied, "Lanzer mentioned it in his journal."

When we made our way to the space shuttle, I couldn't help but be awed by the colossal size of the engine, and the sheer white surface of the device.

Frostworks pulled me along by my arm as we pushed through the crowd, ignoring the angry protests of the onlookers and stopped at the bright yellow tape that kept us from getting too close.

Frostworks nodded in a separate direction and I followed him, keeping a watchful eye for the guards. There would be no use telling Lanzer about this now, as we'd probably get in trouble for jumping the tape. But I had to do what I had to do, and eventually we made it over, stopping to hide every once in a while as the guards passed us. Finally we were in.

The interior of the space shuttle was enormous. On either side of the walls were a collection of buttons that blinked on and off randomly, and a collection of windows to see outside. There were even a few beds and a dining area.

We made our way down the long hallway and stood by door to the cockpit. I could see the perpetrator in his sleek black long coat and his long white hair through the crack in the door.

He looked a lot like Sephiroth from Final Fantasy. A lot of guys did, but I had no time to savior the moment. Nakaio was pulling out wires and was repairing to reboot the system. He was probably installing a load of spy ware and trojans.

Frostworks began typing rapidly into his computer.

"Hey! I didn't tell you to do anything yet!" I shouted in loud whispers.

Frostworks replied, "You didn't have to." And set his laptop onto the ground. "The space shuttle is going to launch in 20 minutes. Might as well buy us some time."

"Buy us...what did you do?"

"I set up a firewall in the system so Lanzer can't launch it."

"OMG," I cried, "This is so gonna get us caught!"

"Not in the least." Frostworks manually shut the door to the space shuttle.

"Eeek! We'll never get out we're so dead!" The hacker turned his head to the door but turned back to his work.

"I'll find another entrance while you make the distraction."

Quickly he ran down the hallway while I sat wondering what to do. Suddenly the door opened, and in panic I threw my pitchfork at him. It hit him hard on the head and he scrambled backward. Frostworks leapt at him from behind and threw his arms around his neck strangling him.

I screamed at the top of my lungs. He was going to kill him! Finally the door to the space shuttle opened and Lanzer came rushing in along with the other mods. Crap! By the time they got there Nakaio was sprawled out on the floor out cold.


	7. Chapter 7 Conclusion

Chapter 7

Frostworks and I sat on the steps to the mansion in Isle De Gambino. We had been banned for 2 weeks after catching the guy, and we were feeling pretty lame for doing so.

Nakaio had actually turned out to be a mod that was in charge of fixing and developing the site. He often spies on people in several windows of different games in order to keep control and catch scriptures and scammers.

He and Lanzer were pretty pissed after what happened and decided to temporarily ban us so we'd recover from our stupid ness and self-centered act. Moria even made us take the beginner lesson all over again, which was pretty annoying to say the least.

But still, I couldn't help laughing, and we both high-fived each other. We were a step closer to revealing the true hackers, the true organization of hackers that started the routine glitches, the disappearing inventory items, and the bizarre in-game occurrences online. We were a step closer, and knew exactly where to start.


End file.
